So have you heard of the term umbilical cord blood cell donation or banking.

It's an issue for expecting moms that have surfaced to the general news and media over the last 5-10 years especially.

Well, this is a relatively new phenomenon in the medical world where umbilical blood harvested from the umbilical cord at birth can be used in a variety of medical and blood disorders, as an alternative to bone marrow transplantation.

So in this article, let's go through some details on what baby cord blood banking is all about

Let's have a look at the topic of public versus private banking of cord blood.

One reason for cord blood use is private use. That is, if the child ever needs a cord blood transplant because of medical illness such as leukemia, inherited immune disorders or metabolic storage diseases, then it can be stored in a bank and used later.

This obviously involves a fee paid to the bank.

The second use is for public donation. That is, to donate cord blood for anyone in medical need to use. The blood is given to a public cord bank with are often partly publicly and partly privately funded with private donations.

This is akin to public blood or public bone marrow donation. The advantage of cord blood donation is that it is relatively simple and pain free.

However not all states and cities have cord blood banks.

Perhaps the largest collection of cord blood units in the world in the one in New York, the NY Blood Centre.

So cord blood is taking more and more media attention as time goes on.

And the reasons for this are 1. that the advantages of cord blood transplantation and donation are becoming more well known, and 2. more people are realising that stem cells derived from cord blood samples can be used to help stem cell research without the use of embryos.

So watch out for more news and information on cord blood.

It's a medical phenomenon that is grabbing the attention of moms and dads as well as the medical world alike.